Teenager raped woman and girl in parks

A judge handed the youth four-and-a-half years in detention for raping the 15-year-old at Rosehill Park in Rawmarsh and an 18-year-old woman in Warren Road Park in Wickersley - but he could be eligible for parole after serving half his sentence.

The Advertiser is barred by reporting restrictions from identifying the teenage sex offender, but has launched a legal challenge to the ruling because we feel he should be named for public safety.

Said to have come from a loving and supportive family, he has now been placed on the sex offenders’ register.

The youth - also found guilty of sexually assaulting one of his victims - was just 16 when he launched his first attack on the 18-year-old woman at Wickersley last July.

His Honour Judge Mark Gargan, who said the rapist had shown no remorse and continued to protest his innocence, was told that the youth took his victim into woods at a park on the excuse that he wanted to show her his hideout.

The girl said she had wanted to leave but he grabbed her shoulders, held her down while taking off her bra and trousers and raped her as she struggled.

Eventually she managed to push him off and tried to use her phone to ring her friend but the attacker grabbed it and threw it out of reach.

She was finally able to flee, found her friends again and they went to the police.

The second attack, committed last October while the youth was on bail, happened after he met the 15-year-old victim and her friend at Rosehill Park.

The victim was left with the defendant and another younger teenager,

The defendant suggested a threesome but the girl said no and the other boy left.

The attacker then hugged the victim, pushed her against the pillar of a building and started touching her, Sheffield Crown Court was told.

Despite her telling him to stop, the youth put his hand down her trousers, assaulted her and made her touch him intimately.

He then forced her to the ground and raped her.

The distraught girl later told her friends and family what had happened.

When interviewed, the defendant denied any sexual contact and could not explain the semen evidence in each case.

Judge Gargan said: “It must have been clear to any reasonable person that (the first victim) was pushing him off and struggling but nevertheless he continued.”

The judge said that the man “took advantage of circumstances” resulting from the “ordinary meeting of teenagers”.

He added: “By law you are still a child but you have been found guilty of three very serious criminal offences you committed at 16.”

The judge said that the youth did not appear to recognise what he had done and acted as if nothing serious had occurred.

After the first offence, he “must have realised the significance of what you had done”, the judge said, adding: “but nevertheless on October 21 you engaged in similar offences again against a 15-year-old”.

Judge Gargan heard that both girls had been traumatised by their experiences and added: “It does not seem to me that much can be said of remorse because you have maintained your plea of not guilty.”